Monday, May 30, 2011

Tonight's TV highlights

Horrible Histories | Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask | Funny or Die Presents | Four in a Bed | Come Dine With Me | Egypt's Lost Cities | All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Horrible Histories
5.15pm, CBBC

A new series for the superb historical show, which romped off with the best sketch show prize at this year's British Comedy Awards. It's an educational Blackadder for kids, and wonderfully written for a grown-up show, never mind juveniles. It has also spawned a spin-off quiz show, Gory Games, presented by Dave Lamb and a puppet rat. He even keeps score with an abacus. No bleepy, flashy nonsense here. Just historical questions and Crystal Maze-style games. It would have enthralled 20 years ago and is all the better for it. Hooray. Julia Raeside

Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask
10pm, Dave

Quiz show producers looking to make cuts: why not do away with researchers altogether? Alexander Armstrong invites Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones to not only answer some QI-style questions, but to come up with their own questions too. As Webb, grabbing the hand that feeds and munching it like a corncob, says: "We all know where we are. This channel isn't called David." If the pilot doesn't grab your attention, the tossed-together studio set might: a derangement of union flag coffee table and skyline glimpsed through American chatshow blinds. Ali Catterall

Funny Or Die Presents
10pm, Sky Atlantic

After a promising pilot, Funny or Die Presents hits its sophomore slump with an excruciatingly unfunny episode. The show's blend of frat pack ebullience and Adult Swim experimentation can be genuinely amusing when on song, but here it comes off as underdeveloped and inane. Again and again, the germ of a good sketch (a pair of sociopathic stiltwalkers, a bleep censor operator failing to keep up with a foul-mouthed family) takes a predictable turn or gets stretched out to tedious lengths. Disappointing. Gwilym Mumford

Four In A Bed; Come Dine With Me
5pm; 5.30pm, Channel 4

The best teatime comfort television comes the same way as the food equivalent: with a second helping. Come Dine With Me is back for another series of its original daily incarnation, and it's preceded by a new series of Four In A Bed, which kicks off with a particularly good episode, featuring Charlotte Church's parents and brilliant lines like "One thing they had at the Savoy was a bronze head of Hitler, but that was before he went really nasty." Caroline Corcoran

Egypt's Lost Cities
8.30pm, BBC1

Anyone with a layman's understanding of Egypt's archaeological treasures would assume that the most famous finds were made by Howard Carter and team. Space archaeologist Dr Sarah Parcak, however, is on a mission to prove how it's possible that only 1% of ancient Egypt's wonders have been discovered. Parcak uses satellites to probe beneath the sands to unearth lost cities, temples and pyramids. The tricky part? Heading to Egypt with a BBC crew for a hands-on expedition to see if she can dig out the evidence. Nosheen Iqbal

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
9pm, BBC2

Adam Curtis is superb at dismantling the great myths of our time, as this series shows. Tonight, he examines the rise of the notion of the ecosystem and Jay Forrester's ideas of feedback loops, and exposes the crucial fallacy in the idea of self-sustaining machines. It turns out these are not viable alternatives to existing power structures, despite optimism about Twitter-organised revolutions and suchlike. Brilliant, closely argued stuff with excellent use of stock footage. David Stubbs


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/30/tonights-tv-highlights-horrible-histories

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